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en-usTechdirt. Stories about "newsweek"https://ii.techdirt.com/s/t/i/td-88x31.gifhttps://www.techdirt.com/Tue, 14 Oct 2014 10:38:00 PDTDorian Nakamoto Wants To Sue Newsweek -- But It Seems Unlikely To Succeed And Could Cause More Problems For HimMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141014/05504628817/dorian-nakamoto-wants-to-sue-newsweek-it-seems-unlikely-to-succeed-could-cause-more-problems-him.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141014/05504628817/dorian-nakamoto-wants-to-sue-newsweek-it-seems-unlikely-to-succeed-could-cause-more-problems-him.shtmlunmasked the real creator of Bitcoin. Bitcoin was created by someone (or some people) using the name Satoshi Nakamoto, but no one knew who it really was, and over the past few years Nakamoto had more or less disappeared from the Bitcoin scene. Newsweek claimed that Nakamoto was really a person named Satoshi Nakamoto, who actually goes by the name Dorian Nakamoto. The article was weakly sourced, heavy on speculation and based its key arguments on some really clueless assumptions. The most ridiculous parts involved the "forensic analysis" that Newsweek supposedly relied on in identifying Nakamoto. Specifically, this "forensic analyst" looked at the original Bitcoin paper and noted what she said were "old-school technological tropes" -- specifically, discussions about saving disk space, mentioning Moore's Law, and the use of two spaces after a period. This, according to Newsweek, pointed to a much older engineer:

"The idea of conserving any kind of resources, and this is part of my formation, my long background in systems testing, that was a critical issue. But those are very very old-time concerns," she said. "To even mention disk space, things like that — disk space is cheap! And Moore's Law is an old maxim that computing power will double. We've gone exponentially away from Moore's law, but that was what it was all about in that interim period."

Except that while disk space is cheap, the size of the Bitcoin blockchain is a big deal since the whole basis of Bitcoin relies on an ever growing blockchain, and if you didn't figure out ways to minimize the need to redownload the entire blockchain, it would create a massive problem for Bitcoin. The concerns about space weren't archaic at all, but right on point. As for the claim that "we've gone exponentially away from Moore's law"? I mean, that's just flat out wrong.

Either way, it became pretty clear pretty quickly that Dorian Nakamoto wasn't Satoshi Nakamoto -- though Newsweek (bizarrely) still stands by its story. The latest, however is that Dorian Nakamoto has launched a crowdfunding effort to sue Newsweek on a website called NewsweekLied (and for those wondering, Nakamoto's lawyer has confirmed the page is legit).

I sympathize with Nakamoto, having his life shaken up by a shoddy reporting job, plucking him out of obscurity and incorrectly naming him as the creator of Bitcoin. But... I have a lot of trouble seeing how any lawsuit could possibly make sense. In fact, it seems likely that any lawsuit could actually make things worse for Dorian Nakamoto. From the details on the website, it appears that they're likely to use a combination of false light and defamation claims. Both would be pretty difficult to prove, though false light is perhaps a lower bar in this case. The real problem, though, is that most of what is in the article could be considered to reflect positively on Nakamoto, rather than negatively. Claiming he was a secret, if eccentric, creator of a global cryptographic currency phenomenon? Even if it's false (as it appears to be), how would that be "highly offensive to a reasonable person" as required under California law?

As for a defamation claim, they probably wouldn't have to show "actual malice" since Nakamoto wasn't a public figure (though, potentially Newsweek would argue that the Nakamoto they thought they were identifying was a public figure, and thus the higher bar should apply), but they would still have to show the harm to Nakamoto's reputation, leading to the same problem as the false light issue.

Also, Nakamoto's lawyers would likely have to show that Newsweek knew the story was wrong (which doesn't appear to be the case) or that it was "negligent" in reporting the story. While I think we agree that Newsweek was sloppy and there was just generally bad reporting and bad conclusions involved, to reach the level of negligence is not easy.

And here's where it gets even more difficult for Nakamoto. As we've discussed many times in the past, California (thankfully!) has a strong anti-SLAPP law that protects publishers from being sued in an attempt to silence their reporting on issues of public interest. We're big fans of California's anti-SLAPP laws and you'd have to imagine that Newsweek would seek to be protected under that law. And, the bigger issue for Nakamoto is that under California's anti-SLAPP law, if Newsweek were to win, it can go after Nakamoto for its legal fees. And, the law actually would allow Newsweek to go even further, and file a SLAPPback lawsuit, to seek compensatory and punitive damages (though, that might be a longshot for Newsweek).

As ridiculous as the original article was, and as sympathetic as I may be to Dorian Nakamoto's situation, it's difficult to see how his lawsuit has much of a chance. Conceivably, there could be other claims made, or additional evidence that Nakamoto's lawyers think they have on Newsweek, but it seems like a massive longshot and a situation that could potentially create more legal headaches for Nakamoto than it solves.

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]]>freedom-of-the-press-isn't-always-prettyhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20141014/05504628817Fri, 29 Jun 2012 18:31:00 PDTBias In Tech & Media: Lists That Perpetuate The StereotypesMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120629/14475019539/bias-tech-media-lists-that-perpetuate-stereotypes.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120629/14475019539/bias-tech-media-lists-that-perpetuate-stereotypes.shtmlnamed to Newsweek's new Digital Power Index. Like all such lists, I take this with a major grain of salt. These kinds of things tend to be somewhat random, and while it's nice to be recognized, in the grand scheme of things it doesn't mean much of anything. However, as Rachel Sklar pointed out soon after it was announced, the list is dominated by men, with just 9 out of 100 people being women. That, of course, is ridiculous, given just how many women are doing amazing things in the digital world. Even if there may be more men in the field right now, there's no way that a 10 to 1 ratio is reasonable or accurate. There is, of course, reasonable concerns about typical gender bias in how these kinds of things are chosen.

One of the members of the list, Andrew Rasiej -- someone I look up to and respect a great deal for the many things he's done -- has written a really good post, in which he has asked to be removed from the list, and nominated Deanna Zandt to take his place. He's also asked the other men on the list to do the same.

I think this is an important discussion -- and it goes beyond just gender. The list is clearly dominated by white American males. We could just as easily point to the lack of Asian members (by my quick count: 4) or black members (by my quick count: 0) or Latino members (by my quick count: 0) on the list -- or any other particular group. As such, I think it's unfortunate in perpetuating the stereotype and as such, I too, have no problem asking to be removed from the list if there is a mechanism to do so. That said, I do have an issue with "nominating a woman in my place." To me, that feels equally paternalistic (for what it's worth, I explained this to Andrew, and he disagrees, strongly, with this position). I would rather that this discussion lead Newsweek to reconsider how it puts such lists together (going beyond just gender, but also ethnic and racial bounds). Simply nominating a woman or someone else in my place doesn't change things -- and certainly can be seen as the equivalent of benevolently "granting" the position to someone, rather than someone earning their place on the list (no matter how much the person might deserve it).

So, rather than specifically nominating a person in place of me, I think that there needs to be a real discussion on why there often seems to be such a lack of diversity in voices around these things: not in meaningless "lists," but in general. The voices of non-American, non-white, non-males are important, but are often being drowned out, and that's something that needs to stop. We don't necessarily do that by "replacing" the white American males, but by understanding how they come to dominate such lists in the first place -- and then tackling that issue.

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]]>list-of-listshttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120629/14475019539Fri, 12 Nov 2010 16:33:22 PSTNewsweek Merges With The Daily Beast... To Shut Down Newsweek?Mike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101112/15505511834/newsweek-merges-with-the-daily-beast-to-shut-down-newsweek.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101112/15505511834/newsweek-merges-with-the-daily-beast-to-shut-down-newsweek.shtmlis to shut down the Newsweek site and to keep The Daily Beast running. If that's the case... um... why merge at all? Newsweek has the more well known brand and much more traffic. This sounds like an ego merger, where the idea is just to promote the fact that The Daily Beast devoured Newsweek. And that gets you, what, the attention of a tiny group of media business insiders for a couple weeks?